The Aquatics

An extraordinary novel of loyalty, strife, and empowerment from Peabody Award-winning Cameroonian filmmaker Osvalde Lewat.

In the fictional African country of Zambuena, Katmé Abbia enjoys a life of privilege and influence married to Tashun, the powerful prefect of Zambuena's capital. Yet after years spent playing the obedient, demure wife to a husband who has ceased to notice her, Katmé grows increasingly restless. Her one source of connection is Samy, a childhood friend, struggling artist, and gay man—an offense punishable by law in Zambuena. When Katmé discovers that Samy’s new exhibition, funded by herself and Tashun, boldly critiques Zambuena's inequities, her public, married life is set on a collision course with her one true friendship. Political rivals descend and threaten Samy with incarceration, forcing Katmé into an agonizing choice: abandon her friend or destroy her family.

Mixing compassion with clear-eyed fury and a keen sense of the absurd, The Aquatics confronts one of contemporary Africa’s most entrenched societal issues in a story as immersive and inevitable as a quickly rising tide.

Publication date: December 2, 2025

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25

Page count: 248 pages

ISBN: 9781566897457

Translated from the French

Osvalde Lewat is a Cameroonian author. Osvalde is a renowned documentary filmmaker whose work has been awarded the prestigious Peabody Award. Her debut novel, The Aquatics, won the Pan-African Prize for Literature, the French Academy Literature Prize, and the Kourouma Prize.

Maren Baudet-Lackner is an American literary translator from the French who is passionate about bringing exceptional works of literature by traditionally underrepresented authors to English-speaking readers. She has published over a dozen titles with major imprints in the United Kingdom and United States and is the recipient of a 2023 PEN Presents Award and a 2024 PEN Translates Award. She also received Albertine Translation grants for her work in 2023 and 2024. Maren holds advanced degrees from Yale and the Sorbonne and lives near Paris with her family.

Winner of the 2022 Pan-African Prize for Literature

Winner of the 2022 Kourouma Prize

Winner of the 2022 French Academy Literature Prize

“Lewat pulls no punches in her depiction of virulent hatred toward queer people. . . . This one hits hard.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Lewat’s prose captures beauty and brutality while examining social constraints, corruption, and what it means to live truthfully.”

—Laura Chanoux, Booklist

“Lewat has created a memorable character who alternates between moments of weakness and strength in a way that feels thoroughly human. She addresses themes of political corruption and homophobia with an incandescent anger. . . . A promising first book from a writer to watch.”

—Kirkus

“Magnificent!”

—Atiq Rahimi, Goncourt Prize-winning author of The Patience Stone

“Osvalde Lewat’s visual writing captures the heroine’s dilemma, following her thoughts and gestures as if in close-up.”

—Le Monde

“Osvalde Lewat enters literature with this first novel of remarkable vivacity.”

—Le Point

“A modern tragedy in which everything sounds true.”

—Le Soir

“Osvalde Lewat made a name for herself as a filmmaker through documentaries, but The Aquatics is her first novel. It is hard to believe, as this book is masterful. Everything rings true: the tone, the style, the life details, the many characters, all complex even when cartoonish.”

—Michel Zink, French Academy